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Does anyone have data that shows the APK size actually hurts the downloads / purchases of an application? Regardless I think this was a mistake on the developer

by Aqueous 11y ago

Does anyone have data that shows the APK size actually hurts the downloads / purchases of an application? Regardless I think this was a mistake on the developers' part and could have been anticipated. First of all, it is important to have a smaller APK for users in developing economies and/or low incomes, but today's newer devices come with so much space that going to great lengths to reduce the APK size early on is a premature optimization, especially when we're talking about removing libraries that are required for proper running of the APK on every conceivable handset configuration. You should only ever reduce the APK by removing things that absolutely are not critical to run the same application package everywhere. So: First, ensure that your app runs for everyone. Then find ways to reduce the APK size without compromising that. And yes, I'm aware that Android / Google Play has added APK splitting, allowing platform-specific APKs to be distributed from the Play store. I actually would argue on balance this was probably a bad idea which presumes an iTunes-like single distribution channel.

izacus 11y ago
Yes, APK size is still critical. We still see a huge amount of people owning and running cheaper devices which have problems installing large apps. Your friends with 700EUR phones aren't really all of the market and there's still enough devices out there that will not successfully install a 30+MB APK. And that's not even talking about how wasting users storage for things he doesn't need (just because you're a bit lazy) is just... wrong.
- deleted 11y ago
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- Aqueous 11y ago
  Yes, I agree it is important and it is still also one of the last things you should think about. Certainly breaking the one-package-runs-everywhere by delivering different packages for different architectures in order to save disk space is one of the last things that should be considered. There are plenty of optimizations before this that you can make by compiling your native libraries differently, removing redundant information in resources, etc, before you should consider delivering architecture-specific APKs. And this is precisely because there are many back-channels for distributing APKs (back-channels which are also probably more commonly used in developing economies where those newer phones are unaffordable) in addition to the Play store.

by Aqueous 11y ago

izacus 11y ago

Yes, APK size is still critical. We still see a huge amount of people owning and running cheaper devices which have problems installing large apps. Your friends with 700EUR phones aren't really all of the market and there's still enough devices out there that will not successfully install a 30+MB APK. And that's not even talking about how wasting users storage for things he doesn't need (just because you're a bit lazy) is just... wrong.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Aqueous 11y ago
Yes, I agree it is important and it is still also one of the last things you should think about. Certainly breaking the one-package-runs-everywhere by delivering different packages for different architectures in order to save disk space is one of the last things that should be considered. There are plenty of optimizations before this that you can make by compiling your native libraries differently, removing redundant information in resources, etc, before you should consider delivering architecture-specific APKs. And this is precisely because there are many back-channels for distributing APKs (back-channels which are also probably more commonly used in developing economies where those newer phones are unaffordable) in addition to the Play store.